The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied, those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The article concludes that a business prospers only when it hires people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night. This conclusion is indefensible as it stands on vague assumption taken by the author from a study whose integrity is questionable due to various parameters of the study.
Firstly, the study is done on a mere 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives. The sample size is too less to validate the study or making any inference from it is difficult. Also considering this small sample size where the male and female executives are rated to the average number of hours they sleep per night and associated it to the success of the firm is worthless. What if the executives whose amount of sleep data is being collected are interested in late night party and to maintain the time discipline of their firm they had to wake up early? In such a scenario their amount of sleep is less and it can not be related to the success of the firm.
Secondly, it is stated in the argument that the firms whose executives did not need more than 6 hours of sleep had higher profit margins and faster growth. But there might be a possibility that the advertising firms which showed increase in profits were more popular and due to their popularity among clients they were able to perform better than other advertising firms. Also they might have a strong executive connection in the market due to which they were able to perform better and gain a high profit margins.
Thirdly, there is a possibility that the firms where executives had not more than 6 hours of sleep, the executives had a job from morning till late night and the firm made them do overtime just to increase their profit margins. So due to this reason they might not get to sleep more than 6 hours. Contrary to this there is a possibility that the firm had very less working hours, but their executives were far more prolific than other firms' executives. So due to their productivity rate to complete their work faster might also be the reason for the firms' success and so it can not be associated with the amount of sleep of the executives.
To conclude, there are some questions which are unanswered and some vague parameters present in the study which makes it worthless. So the conclusion made from such a futile study by the author of the article completely fails as no convincing reasoning is given.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 423 350
No. of Characters: 1930 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.535 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.563 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.479 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 108 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.438 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.475 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.371 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.618 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 65, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ne on a mere 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives. The sample size ...
^^
Line 3, column 187, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...ing any inference from it is difficult. Also considering this small sample size wher...
^^^^
Line 5, column 373, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...rm better than other advertising firms. Also they might have a strong executive conn...
^^^^
Line 7, column 551, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
...faster might also be the reason for the firms success and so it can not be associated...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1968.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 423.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.6524822695 5.12650576532 91% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53508145475 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53681597369 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.4231678487 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 627.3 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.020828513 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.0 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.4375 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1875 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.218543426742 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0847269223287 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.071995473629 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.126074996243 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0792859257034 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.99 12.5979740519 79% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.5 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.